HOUSING & TRANSPO COSTS: Housing and transportation costs over the last decade have soared past income, according to a report out Thursday ( http://bit.ly/R6RewB) from the Center for Housing Policy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology. Moderate-income families in the country’s major metro areas spend nearly 60 percent of their income on those two costs alone. As middle-class issues define this election, the report accentuates a glaring silence on one of the most fundamental: how to make communities better places to live. “It’s really important that we stop thinking about our policy in separate silos: housing over here, transportation over there and the environment over there,” Jeffrey Lubell, executive director of the Center for Housing Policy and co-author of the study, told Jessica. “We have to link them together and think about how do we lower the combined costs? People don’t live in silos.” Pros get the whole story: http://politico.pro/R6Trbg

TEXTING DRIVERS, BEWARE: Checking your text messages behind the wheel? Look up — the police might be watching you from an overpass or street corner. Earlier this week, DOT announced a $550,000 grant for “high-visibility anti-texting enforcement programs” in Massachusetts and Connecticut. That includes police training, media outreach and things like dedicated patrols and peering into cars from overpasses to try to nab texters. Though states have been quick to react to Secretary Ray LaHood’s full-court press on distracted driving, enforcing anti-texting laws has proven particularly difficult. So far, 39 states have enacted anti-texting laws. But previous distracted-driving demonstration programs in Connecticut and New York showed that only about 5 percent of distracted-driving citations issued were for texting violations — the majority were for using a cellphone. Kathryn breaks it all down: http://politi.co/TAaXlt

MORAN TELLS AVIATION TO ‘SPEAK UP’: With all the talk about sequestration, MT was happy to see Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran talking to our colleagues at NewsChannel 8 yesterday. We asked him about the fiscal cliff and sequestration, of which the Northern Virginia pol said too many are focusing on the defense side rather than the domestic cuts. Of particular concern is the aviation industry, which if the sequester advances would slice $377 million from the FAA’s operations budget and another $415 million from the aviation trust fund, according the Obama administration’s report on the potential cuts. We told Morgan that we sense the aviation industry is definitely worried about the potential cuts. “They should be,” Moran told MT. “I wish they’d speak up.” MT notes that aviation groups have sounded the sequester alarm about as loudly as they can, but it’s still been largely drowned out by the defense talk.

CALIF. THE BUSIEST AMTRAK STATE: Amtrak released ridership numbers for each U.S. station on Thursday, calculated by passengers getting on and off in fiscal year 2012, which just ended. The busiest stations were Penn Station in New York (9.5 million), Union Station in D.C. (5 million), Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station (4 million), Chicago’s Union Station (3.5 million) and L.A.’s Union Station (1.7 million). California narrowly edged New York as the state with the most Amtrak passengers, 11.9 million to 11.6 million. Of states with Amtrak service, Idaho and its lone station saw the fewest ons and offs, at just under 9,000. The passenger railroad carried more than 31.2 million people in FY 2012 — an all-time record and the ninth ridership high in the last 10 years. The list: http://politico.pro/PercZX

Heimlich maneuver: The railroad also passes along word that work is beginning on a 1.5-mile addition of third track in Delaware south of Wilmington, a $53 million project that also will rehab bridges and signals on the Northeast Corridor chokepoint.

ENDORSED FROM THE D: Former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca endorsed Mitt Romney yesterday morning in a letter citing “dozens of years of experience” in the public and private sectors, the Detroit Free Press reported ( http://on.freep.com/S6fXB9). Iacocca’s letter did not mention the auto industry rescue of GM and Chrysler in 2008 and 2009. Iacocca supported George W. Bush in 2000 and endorsed John Kerry in 2004.

Long view: Iacocca’s warm view of Romney isn’t a surprise: An undated video of Iacocca we dug up (OK, found on Google) on video website Dailymotion in 2007 by “GovMittRomney” shows Iacocca saying he knew Romney’s parents well and praising Romney as someone who has “run a hell of a good business” and has executive experience. The audio is rough, but you get the idea: http://dai.ly/S6g7bN

‘Bailout Bonanza?’ The Nation is out with a report about Romney’s blind trust and how Mitt and his wife Ann profited from the auto rescue via auto parts-maker Delphi. “With an investment of at least $1 million, their smallest possible gain when Delphi went public would have been $10.2 million. … But that’s just the beginning. Since the November 2011 IPO, Delphi’s stock has roared upward, boosting the Romneys’ Delphi windfall from $10.2 million to $15.3 million for each million they invested,” writes Greg Palast. http://bit.ly/OLb9RW

BACKING A DEAD HORSE: A new crop of maritime groups has agreed to back the Law of the Sea Treaty, even as many label it dead in the water. The Chamber of Shipping of America, Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association and the National Association of Marine Services have added their names to a list that includes prominent business organizations and oil companies. Canada has recently said it would file claims under the treaty for exclusive access to 1.75 million kilometers of marine resources, and Swaziland and Ecuador also have just agreed to ratify the treaty. But Sen. John Kerry, who has pushed this session for a vote on the treaty, has failed to garner enough backing in the Senate.

MILEAGE MAY VARY: Cause of Action was out with a report Thursday ( http://bit.ly/QwgTet) that “potentially” and “may” show that the Chicago Transit Authority misreported vehicle revenue miles since 1982, to the tune of $150 million in federal funds. CofA passed along their concerns to DOT, DOT’s IG and DOJ to no avail, which the group called “particularly troubling.” A CTA spox told the Tribune ( http://trib.in/RVCjTS) that the FTA changed its definition of revenue service last year and told CTA to stop including bus mileage from garages to the beginning of routes — and that CTA does not need to revise earlier years’ reporting.

CAN’T GET THERE FROM HERE: It’s an issue that MT perhaps doesn’t write enough about: The problems that people with disabilities face in simply getting around. Our colleague Seung Min Kim ( http://politi.co/WBjUzK) has an eye-opening piece on the “navigational nightmare” that the Capitol presents with its accessibility gaps, something Burgess got a small taste of following his ACL surgery. Another reader sends in a story from Maine, where road engineers got a firsthand taste of what it’s like to get around the aging streets of Portland in a wheelchair. PPH: http://bit.ly/TwuqTL

MAILBAG — Bootleg airbags: Sen. Carl Levin wrote Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday, asking for a report on how DHS is protecting the public from counterfeit air bags and other knockoff auto parts. “The infiltration of the U.S. supply chain by fake and faulty auto parts poses a serious public safety concern. Not only that, but knock-off parts flooding the market also cost American jobs,” Levin wrote in the letter ( http://bit.ly/R6TZOB). The Michigan senator cited an Oct. 10 NHTSA advisory ( http://1.usa.gov/W2PSEO) alerting consumers to the danger of counterfeit air bags, which the administration said is a problem that affects less than 0.1 percent of the country’s vehicle fleet and has not yet been blamed for any deaths or injuries.

GM’S SHIFTING STAFF: General Motors has plans to hire 3,000 workers from Hewlett-Packard as it moves more computer functions in-house. The company’s overall strategy is to increase control over technology in its vehicles. GM says making HP employees already working on its projects full-time will control costs and help the company advance computer-related work more quickly. Businessweek: http://buswk.co/R3w0xp

MT POLL — ‘Defeat Jihad’: The controversial new ads have been up in four D.C. Metro stations for a week now, prompting calls for tolerance and a slew of counter-ads and calls for boycotts. But does it matter to you? Tell us before Sunday at noon: http://bit.ly/Q6qmZL

TRACK WORK WEEKEND: D.C.’s Metro has two track sections closed this weekend as buses replace trains between Grosvenor and Friendship Heights on the Red Line and between East and West Falls Church on the Orange Line. The Green Line has single-tracking on its northern leg. WMATA has the details: http://bit.ly/R3yQ5r

School of hard rocks: Metro is considering altering a route through a residential portion of Anacostia on the W routes because too many people are throwing rocks at buses. DCist: http://bit.ly/TxGfcQ

Back on track? D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has formed a task force to get the beleaguered streetcar project in Northeast back on schedule. http://1.usa.gov/RKqXVv

PRO TRIVIA NIGHT RETURNS: POLITICO’s Patrick Gavin and Pro’s Tony Romm will be teeing up questions on all things policy, politics and D.C. next Tuesday night. Pros can RSVP with their teams of four to eholman@politico.com.

HOT TOPIC: The firm building Virginia’s I-95 HOT lanes has signed a project labor agreement, which sets wages benefits and more, for the project that will cost close to $1 billion. Fluor-Lane 95 signed on with a LIUNA affiliate in Northern Virginia, the union announced Thursday.

THE COUNTDOWN: DOT funding runs out in 160 days, passenger rail policy in 347 days, surface transportation policy in 715 days and FAA policy in 1,077 days. There are 18 days before the general election, and the 113th Congress convenes in 79 days.

EVEN BETTER THAN CRUISIN’ USA: Yesterday Honda partnered with The Ohio State University on a $1.3 million driving simulation laboratory that researcher Jan Weisenberg said “is designed to offer a visually immersive and realistic driving experience that will allow researchers to study how people actually react and behave behind the wheel.” With biometric sensors and a wrap-around HD screen, a Honda source wrote to say “it's basically the coolest driving video game around, only meant for 100 percent research purposes — not entertainment.” MT still prefers the N64 classic Rush 2. Check out a pic: http://bit.ly/QxTn0J

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** A message from the Coalition for Future Mobility: Driving Safety: Human error. It’s a factor in 94% of all crashes according to government data. So imagine how much safer our roads would be with Autonomous Vehicles. By reducing risky and dangerous driving behaviors, AVs will help save lives. Tell Congress to greenlight Autonomous Vehicle testing and deployment.http://bit.ly/gl-sd **

About The Author

John Burgess Everett is a congressional reporter for POLITICO. He previously was a transportation reporter for POLITICO Pro, Web producer, helping run POLITICO’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, and a contributor to the On Media blog.

About The Author

Adam Snider is a transportation reporter for POLITICO Pro and author of Morning Transportation. He has covered transportation since 2007, joining POLITICO in 2011 to launch MT and later found the word “Mica-ism.”

Snider is a fan of all modes of transportation, though nothing beats a good silly walk. In his spare time, he can be found brewing a hoppy beer, rooting for the Nationals, watching a bad 1970s horror movie or exploring the District from his home base in Mount Pleasant.

Adam studied English and communications at Clemson University in South Carolina. His work has been featured by Nieman Journalism Lab and his snark has appeared on MSNBC. He has had several works of fiction published in literary journals and is constantly reminded of his proclamation to a fiction professor many years ago that journalism is for sellouts who abandon their creative dreams.